Eagle Eye

Never mind Liam Byrne. Having read this, I think John Healey should be the next Labour leader. It takes courage for an elected politician to challenge the notion that the great merry go-round of property speculation is a sustainable route to national prosperity - and also to point out the social inequities created by expensive housing.

As the Housing minister correctly points out: "As housing wealth is passed from parents to children, inequality is compounded over the generations". It's actually worse than that. High house prices are also effectively a tax on the young (often poor), the proceeds of which go to the old (often rich).

For three decades Governments have blindly promoted "the dream" of home ownership. The lazy assumption has been that there are no votes in promoting a more European-style renting regime.

I wonder how long it will be before Mr Healey and his dangerous ideas are sat upon by the all-must-own-houses orthodoxy merchants?

photo: John Healey MP website

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Comments

He may well talk sense, although that is VERY debatable, but you, sir, talk the biggest load of nonsense I have ever read from a so-called journalist. To recommend someone as a leader of a major political party on the basis of one speech seems to me to be puerile in the extreme.